We must have run out of hens by now.....

Ed Gillespie, former Chairman of the Republican National Committee is working as a special advisor to Judge John Roberts for the confirmation of John Roberts. He is not working, as the title suggests, for John Roberts, but rather for the White House to coordinate the message and the proceedings.

How is it that a former lobbyist and political minuteman can be elevated to such a weighty position? How can such a partisan person have such access? If, as Ed says, he works in the White House, for the administration, what is the title? What are the parameters to the position? Was this an appointed position? Is this a paid position?

Prior to becoming Chairman of the RNC, Mr. Gillespie was a founder of a powerful corporate lobbyist firm in DC with Enron, PWC, Viacom and a host of other large corporations as clients.

According to Ed, he works as a 'special government employee' in the White House. "There are millions of government employees, but I'm a special one." He said during a recent interview on C-SPAN.

By assisting in the confirmation effort, Mr. Gillespie coordinates the activities of the confirmation effort involving government offices such as: Office of Government Affairs, US Senate, and Judiciary Committee to arrange the very hearings that we are seeing on C-SPAN. Additionally, he is, according to the interview, working with the communications people in the White House to define the message and also is coordinating the efforts of outside groups and their access to the proceedings.

For the record, Mr. Gillespie is not paid for this position. In his own words, he is volunteering his time for this effort. He was granted access to the proceedings by the White House much like Jeff Gannon (James Guckert) was granted access to the White House Press Office.

Since the media inquiries are handled through Ed; he controls the message about Roberts. And when questions come up regarding the ideology of Roberts, it is filtered through the eye of Gillespie. Is that how our political and judicial process works? To place political operatives in charge of coordinating these proceedings and brokering access to information?

Excellent attack. It had all the traits of a Bush supporter jab. What you lacked in facts and information, you more than made up for in ferocity.
You were vague and essentially said nothing, but you did it with conviction and finger wagging (nice touch)
Your pals,
Dick Cheney V.P.
Karl Rove B.S.

Cliff-
Look, you need to be more specific because different arrangements reflect differing degrees of political chicanery. The question here is how much of the system is being gamed. Trevisani has produced evidence that right now, our future Chief Justice is being advised by exactly the sort of lobbyist that he used to work for. To Trevisani, (and I can’t blame him for this) this has at least the appearance of impropriety.

My question of you was meant to elicit the facts of how common a practice this kind of outside strategical help is. What other supreme court justices have had this kind of support. Specifics are important because they can spell the difference between the predictable engaging of a consultant’s services, and the suspicious involvement of those whose presence may cause a conflict of interest in cases.

Is this important? Ask Ashcroft why he had recuse himself from the Rove Leak case. If an Ed Gillespie-related case comes before the court, how does Chief Justice Roberts avoid the appearance of impropriety?

Have done a little research,
I still have to work you know,
Most interesting in this search…

Joe Biden was the most mentioned advisor to Ginsburg, telling her not to talk about anything that might come up in the future of the court (which is just about everything).

I also found several mentions historically of each nominee having “handlers” to work them through the maze and mire of the hearings. No specific names came up. Except that they were there to “advise them” on everything. (From what to say to what to wear)

Cheney and Rove here. I know Stephen wants specifics, but don’t panic. We’ve been asked for specifics countless times and have yet to give them.(See war in Iraq)

Just attack his patriotism and blame the whole thing on partisan politics.
Meanwhile we’ll dig up some dirt on Stephen and begin a smear campaign of epic proportion.
I wonder if Stephen’s wife is in the CIA, that could be useful, very useful indeed (Cheney hand wringing)(Rove pointing to cheek ala Dr. Evil)

We’re trying to help fellow Bush supporter “Cliff” avoid specifics. Stephen keeps asking poor cliff to stay on topic and explain himself clearly, using facts. You can’t support G.W. and deal in facts, that’s, well, impossible.
We’re starting a smear campaign against Stephen, you want in?
We already told Cliff to question his patriotism and blame it on partisan politics. We just need some dirt.
Cliff, if the problem with Stephen persists, we’ll call for an independent GOP investigation and then make it all go away for you.

Others of your political persuasion have made an argument equating the remark to Ginsburg with that to Roberts about what he should say or not say. Those arguments are more closely related, the situations nearly the same. In both cases, you have members of a coequal branch giving advice to somebody they are examining to make a determination.

Your argument consists of equating the Ginsburg advice, which came from a senator examining him, with that of a private, professional lobbyist advising a future Chief justice and running his publicity effort.

As I usually say, paranoia is a waste of good suspicion. I don’t think the suspicion necessarily is wasted here, especially not with the incestuous way Washington politics in the recent era works.

I mean, look who Bush has hired to run our disaster response over the last few years: Allbaugh, who ran FEMA until 2002, was part of the triangle of political operatives that also included Karl Rove and Karen Hughes, that Bush brought with him from Texas. His former roommate, that swell horse-trading fool of a guy is Michael Brown, who just went down in flames.

And who is it who ends up in the number one spot at the White Hous heading up disaster efforts? KARL ROVE!

It would not surprise me that they would bring in an operative like Gillespie, nor would it surprise me if Gillespie had special access afterwards. After all, by some wierd coincidence, the company the Vice President once ran seems to mysteriously get a lot of no-bid contracts.

Cliff-
So what do you see in potential conflicts of interest? Do you want your candidates asking questions about whether they do your good or a special interest’s instead? This is why government response under Bush and the GOP is so sluggish.

“And who is it who ends up in the number one spot at the White House heading up disaster efforts? KARL ROVE!”

This could work out:
1) With his ability to spin things he could actually reverse the trajectory of a hurricane or tornadoe.(Sending it to Venezuala or Cuba)
2)He could scrap dopppler radar and get a direct line to God via G.W. which would increase our storm prediction capabilities to 100%.
3)He can then blame god for storm intel failures.
4)He will eventually screw up and, once again expose this administration as incompetent.
5)The universe may implode if this administration
does something in the best interest of the people.